Here's my delima. I need to buy a Mac by February 1st. I really don't want to buy a new Mac Pro because Apple is supposed to be releasing new models later this year. I'm thinking about:

A) buying a Used 2010 8 core Mac Pro
B) buy a new iMac and then selling it when the new Mac Pros come out
C) buy a new Mac mini to hold me over until mid year, then use it as a render machine

What do you think I should do?

Thanks in advance,
Brad

PerryDS

01-16-2013, 07:32 PM

My advice, buy the 2010 system, you can later use it as an additional render engine.

Artbot

01-16-2013, 07:41 PM

Buy a PC instead.

hensleyb

01-16-2013, 08:16 PM

Thanks PerryDS.

Artbot, I've considered it. I used to work on PCs back in the windows NT days. I was constantly updating drivers and fixing bugs. It was a real waist of time. Is that no longer the case?

darthviper107

01-16-2013, 08:20 PM

For someone not doing anything weird, then it would work as well as working on Mac. If you want to get into gaming you can run into problems, but for 3D programs there's not much issue. Windows 7 is quite stable and does a good job of keeping up to date.
It'd be worth considering since you could get more power for the amount you want to spend.

DutchDimension

01-16-2013, 08:44 PM

Here's my delima. I need to buy a Mac by February 1st. I really don't want to buy a new Mac Pro because Apple is supposed to be releasing new models later this year. I'm thinking about:

A) buying a Used 2010 8 core Mac Pro
B) buy a new iMac and then selling it when the new Mac Pros come out
C) buy a new Mac mini to hold me over until mid year, then use it as a render machine

What do you think I should do?

Thanks in advance,
Brad

What are you looking to do? If it's just a spot of modelling for the time being, a Mini will do just fine. They are remarkably capable. If you're looking to do heavier stuff, like simulations and rendering, see about getting an older refurb Mac Pro from the online Apple store.

hensleyb

01-16-2013, 08:54 PM

DutchDimension, Thanks for your reply. I'm a 3D generalist so I do a little of everything. I just got laid off and I have the opportunity to support some of the clients from the company because they no longer off 3D services. By the way, I was using a Mac Pro 2.8 GHz 8 core with 10 gigs of RAM. I guess I'm going to go with a used 8 core unless someone has a better option.

Thanks again to everyone for weighing on in this.

SheepFactory

01-16-2013, 09:00 PM

Thanks PerryDS.

Artbot, I've considered it. I used to work on PCs back in the windows NT days. I was constantly updating drivers and fixing bugs. It was a real waist of time. Is that no longer the case?

Yes that is no longer the case. I would buy a PC and save money.

DePaint

01-16-2013, 09:10 PM

Artbot, I've considered it. I used to work on PCs back in the windows NT days. I was constantly updating drivers and fixing bugs. It was a real waist of time. Is that no longer the case?

Windows 7 is stable, reliable & easy to use.

It doesn't have much in common at all with the bad old days of Windows NT (which was a server OS, more than a decent desktop/workstation OS to begin with).

I use Win 7 without any special antivirus software, and so far, no significant spyware/malware infections have occurred either.

entropymachine

01-16-2013, 09:20 PM

Ditto for a PC/Win7. Freedom to build your own machine according to your own needs without having to spend enough to buy a small car for the same hardware or inferior is also a plus. With the saved money you could, i.e, setup a gigabit network at home :thumbsup:

hensleyb

01-16-2013, 09:22 PM

Now I'm on the fence again. PC users, if you had around $3,500 USD to spend on a machine, what would you buy?

darthviper107

01-16-2013, 09:57 PM

I would go for something like an i7 3930k processor which I would think is faster than the dual Xeons in current Mac Pro's. You could max out on memory, you could even get a Quadro 4000 if you wanted or one of the best gaming graphics cards. That type of system wouldn't even cost $3,500 though.

You could even do a dual processor workstation system with newer Xeons, like a LGA 2011 system with dual six-core processors would be within your range I think.

PiotrekM

01-16-2013, 09:59 PM

for that money...3 computers with i7-3930 (12 threads) with 32-64GB RAM, one as ws, rest for rendering.
Or 5-6 computers with i7-2600k + o/c.
or one dual xeon (24 threads) if you run fluid sims...

CHRiTTeR

01-16-2013, 10:26 PM

Just be sure to get windows 7 x64 and not windows 8! :scream:

hensleyb

01-16-2013, 10:39 PM

Sounds good. I'm not a build your own computer kind of guy. Where would you recommend I order a prebuilt machine?

eddgarpv

01-16-2013, 10:50 PM

I'm looking at this right now (support is great) http://www.avadirect.com/

DutchDimension

01-16-2013, 11:03 PM

Now I'm on the fence again. PC users, if you had around $3,500 USD to spend on a machine, what would you buy?

Don't do it. You'll regret it.

CHRiTTeR

01-16-2013, 11:44 PM

Don't do it. You'll regret it.

Im pretty sure he wont... OS fights are silly anyway. Ppl take this stuff way to personal.

He always could just get the same parts that are in a mac while assembling his pc. So in case he doesnt like windows 7 he could always install mac os on it ;)

LuckyBug

01-16-2013, 11:50 PM

From my experience what you custom built and what professional built is not the same, and he can always install windows on mac, it ran very smoothly.

CHRiTTeR

01-16-2013, 11:51 PM

From my experience what you custom built and what professional built is not the same, and he can always install windows on mac, it ran very smoothly.

But costs twice as much

vlad

01-16-2013, 11:54 PM

From my experience what you custom built and what professional built is not the same...

And what would that difference be (apart from support perhaps)?

conbom

01-17-2013, 12:56 AM

For gaming PC's no difference, for workstations better to get them from a vendor due to the component costs and config. In other words you wont save much money on a workstation by building it yourself so may as well get one professionally built.

You could probably get a used workstation class PC for very little cash from HP, Dell, Lenovo etc to tide you over for a year. If you try to do serious work on a Mac mini you will regret it!

hensleyb

01-17-2013, 01:50 AM

Don't do it. You'll regret it.

DutchDimension, did you have a bad experience switching to PC?

darthviper107

01-17-2013, 02:20 AM

The only possible problem that can come from a custom PC is if you receive a part that's not working. I've personally never had that happen in all the builds I've done, usually as long as you choose a well-reviewed part from Newegg then you can't go wrong. That being said, there will probably be at least one person on there that got a DOA part.

Also, when building yourself, you usually get a better warranty deal. The individual parts have a much higher warranty than when you buy a whole computer, and if you get a problem with a part you can just send in that part instead of having to take in the whole computer, so if you needed to you could get a replacement part while waiting for the broken part to be taken care of. Though of course you have no coverage if you damage the parts yourself.

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